Animals In PrintThe On-Line Newsletter26 May 2010 Issue

Investigator's Diary

Day 1

Every day, the workers castrate and tail dock between 100 and 500
piglets. This is done by grabbing a piglet out of the crate by his leg,
holding him upside down, slicing open his scrotum with a scalpel, and
tearing out the testes with their bare hands. Tails are then docked by
clipping them at the base with a dull set of pliers. The pigs struggle and
squeal violently; it appears to be extremely painful, and no anesthesia is
issued. Commonly during castration, a male pig's intestines will rupture,
falling out of the incision. This is usually not immediately noticed, but
when it is the pig is brought to the gas cart and suffocated to death.

Pigs that are too small are brought to the "death cart." Pigs gather here
throughout the day until there are enough to economically justify using the
gas. A cracked and chipped cover is placed over the cart, and CO2 is pumped
into the bin. My supervisor told me it's supposed to take 5 minutes, but
usually takes 10, sometimes more. "It's incredibly cruel," she told me, "but
it's how we're told to do it."

Day 2

Today I went into the Gestation area. The sows are kept here for the vast
majority of their lives. The crates are only 20" wide and about 75" long.
Most of the sows are large enough that both of their sides touch the bars,
allowing them absolutely no movement except a step forward or backwards.
Many have deep sores on their shoulders and scrapes on their noses from
constant rubbing against the metal bars.

The floor is made of concrete, and covered in manure. Flies and fruit
flies are everywhere. The smell is thick and oppressive. Many of the sows
display neurotic behavior such as bar-biting and head-shaking.

Day 8

My coworker handles the baby pigs with apparent contempt for their
welfare, often taking amusement from shaking them or throwing them at their
mothers. He picks them up by their ears and throws them at me, or carries
them that way to the gas cart. One time today, he took one by the leg and
casually flipped him up in the air over and over, the way a tennis player
does with his racket.

Day 10

Most of the sows here are very anxious for any stimulation. When I go to
feed them, they stick their snouts through the area between the feeders and
the bars, sniffing my hand and trying to work their way closer to me. They
like being touched and petted.

Day 11

At the end of the day, a medium-sized pig in the gas cart was still
breathing. I told my supervisor, who told me that occasionally the gassing
doesn't kill them, and that we should gas him again.

Day 17

There was another dying pig lying in the hall today, gasping for air. My
coworkers stepped around him and went into a room to continue working. When
we finished and went back into the hall, a worker kicked the dying pig hard
in the chest, and he flew back into the wall, leaving a trail of blood from
his mouth. He continued to breathe as the workers walked away.

Day 18

Before being moved from Gestation to Farrowing, sows are washed with a
high-pressured hose. This equipment is not meant for use on live animals.
Often, the workers end up cutting lines into their midsections, teats, feet
and faces with the hot, high-pressured water. After this painful process,
they are then soaked in an industrial detergent that causes them to
furiously rub against the bars of their crates in discomfort.

Day 21

I found an unusually large number of pigs that had been "laid on" today,
which literally means they were caught between their mothers and the floors
or walls of the crates. This is as tragic as it is common. It is obviously a
very painful way to go.

Day 22

Moving the sows from Gestation to Farrowing rooms can be difficult
because the sows only get the chance to walk a handful of times a year. When
they reach their destination and realize they are to enter another tiny
crate, many resist, bucking and squealing and pushing their way past the
workers, who force them in by pulling their ears and kicking them.

One worker who was unloading baby pigs entertained himself by throwing
them around in the air by their legs. Other times, he would hold them as
high in the air as he could and let them drop, or forcefully dunk them into
the bin of pigs. On one instance, he tried spinning a pig in midair towards
the bin. It went flying, hit its back on the edge of the bin, and fell on
the floor. "Don't let the animal rights people see that!" he declared. The
workers continued to grab these pigs by their ears and legs and throw them
into these bins until there were as many as 40 at a time, with them piled on
top of each other.

I was handed a ruptured pig and told to bring him to the gas cart. The
cart was off but the lid was on. I opened it, and found about 15 dead pigs
inside, and one who was still breathing but unconscious. This is the second
time (out of very few instances that I've checked) that I've found a live
pig after the gas has been run.

Day 31

The sows are tattooed just above each leg with their serial numbers. To
do this, a worker dips a large mallet with 3/4" long spikes at the end into
ink, and then chases the sows around a group pen, whacking them with the
spikes. The sows scream and run in avoidance.

A gestation worker told me that she bolted two sows today. She said one
took a long time to die, and walked around vomiting after being bolted.

Day 32

The Gestation manager explained to me that the shock of being dropped
from 24 lbs of feed a day (which they receive in Farrowing) to 5 lbs. (which
they get in Gestation) serves to "shock" the sows' bodies into going back
into heat. Ideally, he said, you can breed them immediately after they
return from Farrowing.

Day 43

Today, we gassed 17 pigs for being "non-viable," or not growing fast
enough.

At the end of the day, a female worker came back from bolting a sow
looking exhausted. She told me that the sow couldn't use her back legs, but
still managed to give her a lot of trouble. She kept dragging herself in the
wrong direction, "squealing bloody murder," as she tried to lead the sow
outside to bolt her. She said she was pushing the sow and yelling at her,
and finally just said, "Goodbye, pig," and bolted her in the middle of the
feed aisle.

Day 44

Injecting the sows with drugs is about half of the workers' daily load.
They are mostly antibiotics, penicillin, and steroids to keep them from
succumbing to sickness.

It's been very hot recently, which makes this facility dryer and dustier
than ever. This must cause great discomfort to the pigs, who prefer cool,
moist environments. This arid environment is not simply the result of
carelessness on the corporation's part, however. We are repeatedly reminded
never to allow the sows to get wet because, with their weakened immune
systems, any water would breed a scourge of diseases.

Day 45

At a company-wide meeting, a speaker for the Pork Quality Assurance
program briefly mentioned our animal welfare guidelines, which she admitted
were tricky. Sows are supposed to have enough room to lie down without
touching another animal, the guidelines say, but as she said, "How can they
lay down without touching another animal? Well, they can't. There's no crate
in the world where they can lay down with their legs sticking out!"

Day 52

In one room while I was treating pigs, I noticed a sow with a large
rectal prolapse. I mentioned it to the other Farrowing workers, asking if I
should write her up.

"For what?" they asked. "For treatment," I said.

They looked confused. "We don't treat that," one of them told me. "We'll
let her wean her babies, if she makes it that long, then she's probably a
goner."

While doing vaccinations, one worker found a male pig that had ruptured,
took him by his leg, and tossed him outside into the hallway, then resumed
vaccinating. When we were finished, we found him near the dead bins. The
worker rounded him up and grabbed him by his leg, then laconically walked
down the halls, swinging him. When he turned into the gas cart room, he
swung the pig lazily up into the air and slammed him into the wall, then
tossed him into the cart, announcing, "Die honky!" and turning on the gas.

I saw firsthand how clever and empathic pigs can be. A sow and her entire
litter had escaped their crate and gathered in the hallway. I examined how
they'd escaped and discovered that the sow had loosened steel pegs in two
different places. I told a co-worker this story and she said that when a sow
figures out how to unlock her crate, she often goes around unlocking all of
the other crates as well.

Day 54

The sow with the prolapsed rectum remains untreated, and the prolapse has
started to decay, turn black, and smell.

Day 59

Because her pigs are being weaned tomorrow, the workers bolted the sow
with the rectal prolapse today. The Farm Manager came in with the bolt gun,
looking frustrated. She said that she had just bolted a sow in Gestation,
and had to bolt her four times before she died.

When the workers bolted the prolapsed sow, she took two bolts. After the
first, the sow became "mad as hell," as my coworker said, making it
difficult to efficiently deliver the second one.

Day 61

While throwing pigs - a common and very stressful practice I've described
in earlier entries - my coworker told me that when he does this alone, he
just throws the pigs right into the cart, from all the way across the crate.

Today we had to bolt another sow with a rectal prolapse. One worker said
that he was excited about this event. He told me that yesterday while
driving with his family on the highway, he saw a groundhog running across
the road, and prayed that it would come into his lane. When it did, he
swerved and ran it over. "I just feel like killing something," he said. This
was the second sow in as many weeks to develop a severe rectal prolapse.

When he bolted her the first time, she didn't die. She just stood there
looking stunned as blood trickled from her forehead. She then got her
bearings and tried to turn and run. After a struggle, the worker got in
another shot, which sent her down. She continued to spasm for another 15
minutes. When we returned, my supervisor told me she was dubbing my coworker
"Two-Shot" in light of the fact he rarely kills the sow with one bolt.

I found a pig with his snout and front teeth torn off and hanging by
skin. He was still alive, and had clearly been like this for a while, since
the blood had begun to scab. A worker pulled him out of the crate and gassed
him with the other kill pigs.

Day 67

Today, there was a dead sow in Farrowing. She had been "off feed" for the
last two weeks, and appears to have starved to death. Last week, I had
pointed out this sow to both my supervisor and the farm manager, who told me
not to worry about her. As she became increasingly skinny and lethargic, I
kept mentioning this sow to them, but they insisted she was fine. Now, she
had either died of starvation or succumbed to whatever had caused her to
stop eating. We dragged her emaciated body outside and later we dumped her
in the compost pile. No testing was done.

The gas cart was filled to the brim with pigs today, a total of 39,
including 9 large pigs that were at weaning age. They were left in the cart
all day to trample each other, before being gassed all at once.

Day 73

After my supervisor asked me to turn off the gas in the gas cart, I did
so, even though I could still hear rustling in the cart (According to our
training manual, the ambient gas is supposed to kill them). Fifteen minutes
later I checked the cart, and found that of about a dozen pigs, four were
still breathing. Later that day, I mentioned this experience to my
supervisor. A coworker said that she had the same experience earlier today.
Any remaining illusions I had of this being a humane and efficient means of
euthanasia are long gone.